Multi Millionaires Complaining Again

[ARealitycheck]

I see our multi-millionaire landowners had another moan today at a labour party conference. Oh the woes of having to pay half the tax over a period 8 years longer than the rest of the public.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2ljdvqegkeo

Not a good look when the spokesperson is the owner of a farm obviously worth £5m who has been in receipt of circa £90k subsidy money annually in recent years. While standing in front of machinery that is built anywhere but the UK.

At least draconian protest laws aren't used on them, so that's one less thing to complain about around the Aga.

Good point! :)

Can you imagine Emmerdale if it used the same format as old. Jack crying about subsidy payment amounts. Breaking his heart because his missus has taken up with another guy and that's half the tax break gone. Old Seth saying, if thou don't tell the buggers where thou money is, thar buggers can't bloody tax it. 😂

Are you talking about farmers?! I imagine those same farmers who you expect to produce you top level meat or milk or eggs etc for a pittance?!

The only way that the farmers can maintain prices without going bust is to do things in bulk. That way they can buy things like fertiliser or feed at lower cost per unit and get you those low level prices you love. They aren’t cash rich. Everything is put into the farm.

So let’s say a farm with 500 acres (sounds like a lot) finds it has to sell 100 acres to satisfy that horrible tax, all it does is reduce margins unless prices rise. The problem with that is that then because prices were originally low but demand won’t change inflation rises. Plus there will be an increased level of insecurity as people like you complain which drives public policy towards making decisions that favour overseas supplies which puts further pressure on the supply chain.

Most of our farmers don’t take a wage themselves or certainly not one that many would recognise on here considering the hours they work. A thread I was just reading where someone wanted to earn £100k but not sacrifice family time in the evenings, time off for school holidays or spend time travelling for work. Would like to see them out in the fields all hours of the day or night to ensure animals are safe, that the harvest is brought in or anything else.

Glad to say around our way we are 100% behind our farmers. We only buy meat from them and everything else. If that means a better life for them that’s marvellous. It doesn’t mind. The reality is it just means they keep our food security going. They know the true meaning of commitment for the greater good.

The issue for me is more about the long term food security of our country, and I don’t think the government have got this one right.

Yeah agree OP. Let’s slam them with a massive tax, force them to sell the land, and we can watch it be bought by other multi millionaires for unethical property developing. We can then enjoy a heightened flood risk, food instability, and contribute to climate change as import chlorinated chicken from the States in a bid to plug the gap.

This!

Yawn.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk./money/pensions/private-pensions/gold-plated-nhs-pensions-cost-taxpayers-1bn-month/
We've got a lot of problems. Forcing farmers to break farms up is only the tip of the ice.

How do you solve this problem?

Eh?

@ARealitycheck

You again. Your obsession on this topic is actually concerning. You're on literally every thread.

I have lived and dealt with the farming community for over 20 years. Working for the common good! Not a chance, they would screw the next door farm over to put more money in their own pockets.

I also live and work rurally, the general public are becoming more and more aware of just how well off farmers, especially generational farm owners are. They do not have the support many think they do.

I've asked elsewhere but no-one's answered - I presume there is a good reason, but why aren't farms run as limited companies?

People who become professional landlords always recommend buying houses through a company, I use a company for my business which has all sorts of tax benefits, and means that passing on the company and it's property is as easy as changing directors - why don't farms do that? What am I missing?

Yeah let’s put them on a flat rate of 25k, the robbing bastards. That should suffice for what probably amounts to 70 hours a week of backbreaking work in the elements. Totally on your side, OP. Why should they be wealthy? Why should anyone? Communism, now.

Or they can be forced into selling land, they bought expanding their farms avoiding paying capital gains tax. At the same time as taking a big old wad of cash off the taxed public.

It was these tax breaks and nonsensical environmental subsidies that made the land so damn expensive compared to it's true production value.

The issue is that farmland has become more valuable as a financial product than as actual farmland. The biggest holders of farmland are all just rich guys looking to avoid inheritance tax (Dyson etc). While farms are exempt from inheritance tax, actual farmers will be priced out of buying farms and the temptation for the next generation to sell up will be too great - especially if they can barely make a profit with the actual farming bit.

The blunt policy of just adding a lower amount of inheritance tax is not particularly helpful as it’s basically the worst of both worlds. Farmers pay the tax on an asset that can’t really afford to generate the tax… and at the same time it’s still a relatively attractive financial product for the billionaires. I’m not sure exactly how they could design a better system but I would have liked to see them try!

And about £1 in £4 of council tax goes on local government pensions, for employees and councillors.

Same. Especially in the current climate

How much money do you have left at the end of the month after the mortgage/rent, the electric bill, the council tax, the gas bill, the insurance is paid? Remember for these farm owners, all that is included in their 'pay'.

Yeah, bloody awful we provided financial assistance to ensure our greenfield land improves air quality and sustains the ecosystem. Let’s cut down those damn trees and turn them into IKEA furniture for the new
houses.

Yay let's get rid of all the farms and wait to see how much food we can import if there is a war in Europe. Those farmers must be obscenely rich after all, considering the price of milk.

Around £400.

I’m hugely grateful to farmers for producing quality local food that we’ve been able to buy cheaply for many years.

I don’t want to be outside in the rain at 7pm on a January evening, so I’ll happily leave them to it and all the best to them.

If you wish to do your research, the 'green' credential tax break has benefitted big companies buying land to lower their tax bill.

Most of them are. That allows them to start transferring shares to the next generation in plenty of time to avoid IHT whilst continuing to be able to live in the farmhouse & take advantage of the generous tax reliefs available on the house itself.

Agree with this.
But, OP - don't let the very real threat of food instability stop you.

So the only person this is affecting is people who for some reason don't run their farm as a limited company - which would be a bit mad really, I don't understand why you wouldn't given all the advantages.

60% of farmers are tenant farmers, so aren’t effected.

Of those left, they have vastly favourable IHT terms, compared to everyone else.

The people to get annoyed at are those who have bought (and have boasted about buying) farmland as an IHT dodge.

When prices fall, hopefully some of those Tenant farmers will be able to buy their own places.